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OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

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DEATH 


THE   WORKS   OF  MAURICE  MAETERLINCK  IN 
UNIFORM  STYLE  AND  BINDING 

ESSAYS 
The  Treasure  of  the  Humble 
Wisdom  and  Destiny 
The  Life  of  the  Bee 
The  Buried  Temple 
The  Double  Garden 
The  Measure  of  the  Hours 
Death 

PLAYS 
Sister  Beatrice  and  Ardiane  and  Barbe  Bleue 

JOYZELLE    and    MONNA    VaNNA 

The  Blue  Bird,  A  Fairy  Play 

Mary  Magdalene 

Pelleas  and  Melisande,  and  Other  Plays 

Princess  Maleine 

The  Intruder,  and  Other  Plays 

Aglavaine  and  Selysette 

HOLIDAY    EDITIONS 

The  text  in  each  case  is  an  extract  from  one  of 
the  above  mentioned  books. 
Our  Friend  the  Dog 
Old-Fashioned  Flowers 
The  Swarm 

The  Intelligence  of  the  Flowers 
Chrysanthemums 
The  Leaf  of  Olive 
Thoughts  from  Maeterlinck 


Camera  Portrait  by  E.  O.  Hopp«,  London 


1-^^ 


DEATH 


BY 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 


TRANSLATED  BY 

ALEXANDER  TEIXEIRA  DE  MATTOS 


Copyright,  igii 

By  Maurice  Maeterlinck 

Published,  January,  191 2 
All  rights  resei'ved 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I       OUR    IDEA    OF    DEATH 3 


II       A    PRIMITIVE    IDEA 


5 


III  WE    MUST    ENLIGHTEN    ADD    ESTABLISH    OUR 

IDEA    OF    DEATH lO 

IV  WE      MUST     RID     DEATH     OF     THAT     WHICH 

GOES    BEFORE 12 

V       THE  PANGS  OF  DEATH  MUST  BE  ATTRIBUTED 

TO    MAN    ALONE 1 4 

VI       THE     MISTAKE     OF     THE    DOCTORS     IN    PRO- 
LONGING   THE    PANGS    OF    DEATH  .        .        I7 

VII       THEIR    ARGUMENTS I9 

VIII       THAT  WHICH   DOES  NOT    BELONG    TO  DEATH       21 
IX       THE     HORRORS     OF     THE     GRAVE     ALSO     DO 

NOT    BELONG    TO    DEATH 25 

X       WHEN  CONTEMPLATING  THE  UNKNOWN   INTO 
WHICH  DEATH    HURLS    US,   LET    US    FIRST 
PUT  RELIGIOUS    FEARS   FROM    OUR    MINDS       29 
XI       ANNIHILATION    IMPOSSIBLE       .... 


33 


XII       THE    SURVIVAL    OF    OUR    CONSCIOUSNESS        .        87 
XIII       IT    SEEMS    IMPOSSIBLE OQ 


202S818 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAOB 

XIV       THE    SAME,  CONllNUED 45 

XV       IF    IT    WERE    POSSIBLE,    IT    WOULD  NOT 

BE  DREADFUL 1^8 

XVI       THE      SURVIVAL      WITHOUT     CONSCIOUS- 
NESS        5 1 

XVII       THE    SAME,    CONTINUED 54 

XVIII       THE    LHIITED     EGO     WOULD    BECOME     A 

TORTURE 57 

XIX  A    NEW    EGO    CAN    FIND  A  NUCLEUS  AND 

DEVELOP    ITSELF    IN    INFINITY       .        .  60 

XX  THE     ONLT    SORROW    THAT    CAN    TOUCH 

OUR    MIND 65 

XXI       INFINITY  AS  CONCEIVED  BT  OUR  REASON  68 

XXII       INFINITY   AS  PERCEIVED  BY   OUR  SENSES  7 1 

XXIII  WHICH  OF  THE  TWO  SHALL  WE  KNOW?  74 

XXIV  THE  INFINITY  WHICH  BOTH  OUR  REASON 

AND    OUR    SENSES    CAN    ADMIT        .        .  77 

XXV       OUR    FAITH    IN    INFINITY          ....  8 1 

XXVI       THE    SAME,   CONTINUED 84 

XXVII       SHALL    WE    BE    UNHAPPY    THERE?    •        .  87 

XXVIII       QUESTIONS    WITHOUT    ANSWERS?       .        .  QO 

XXIX       THE    SAME,   CONTINUED g5 

XXX       IT    IS      NOT       NECESSARY       TO      ANSWER 

THEM 99 

XXXI       EVERYTHING  MUST  FINISH  EXEMPT  FROM 

SUFFERING 102 


DEATH 


DEATH 
I 

OUR    IDEA    OF    DEATH 


^}  J/  f  ]^g^g  ]yQQji  ^yeii  sal(J  ; 

*•  Death  and  death  alone  is  what 
we  must  consuh  about  Kfe  ;  and 
not  some  vague  future  or  survival, 
in  which  we  shall  not  be  present. 
It  is  our  own  end  ;  and  every- 
thing happens  in  the  interval 
between  death  and  now.  Do  not 
talk  to  me  of  those  imaginary  pro- 
longations which  wield  over  us 
the  childish  spell  of  number ;  do 
not  talk  to  me — to  me  who  am 
-1  3  h 


DEATH 

to  die  outright  —  of  societies  and 
peoples  I  There  is  no  reality, 
there  is  no  true  duration,  save 
that  between  the  cradle  and  the 
grave.  The  rest  is  mere  bombast, 
show,  delusion  I  They  call  me  a 
master  because  of  some  magic 
in  my  speech  and  thoughts ;  but 
I  am  a  frightened  child  in  the 
presence  of  death !"^ 

1  Marie  Leneru,  Les  Ajjranchis,  Act  m.,  Sc.  iv. 


-J  4  {- 


II 

A    PRIMITIVE    IDEA 


HAT  is  where  we  stand. 
For  us,  death  is  the  one  event  that 
counts  in  our  hfe  and  in  our  uni- 
verse. It  is  the  point  whereat  all 
that  escapes  our  vigilance  unites 
and  conspires  against  our  happi- 
ness. The  more  our  thoughts 
struggle  to  turn  away  from  it, 
the  closer  do  they  press  around 
it.  The  more  we  dread  it,  the 
more  dreadful  it  becomes,  for  it 
battens  but  on  our  fears.  He  who 
seeks  to  forget  it  burdens  his 
memory  with  it;  he  who  tries  to 
shun  it  meets  naught  else.      But, 

H   5   H 


DEATH 

though  we  think  of  death  inces- 
santly, we  do  so  unconsciously, 
without  learning  to  know  death. 
We  compel  our  attention  to  turn 
its  back  upon  it,  instead  of  going 
to  it  with  uplifted  head.  We  ex- 
haust all  our  forces,  which  ought 
to  face  death  boldly,  in  distract- 
ing our  will  from  it.  We  deliver 
death  into  the  dim  hands  of 
instinct  and  we  grant  it  not  one 
hour  of  our  intelligence.  Is  it 
surjDrising  that  the  idea  of  deatk»_- 
which  should  Le  the  most  perfect-^ 
and  the  most  luminous — being: 
the  most  persistent  and  the  most 
inevitable  —  remains  the  flimsiest 
of  our  ideas  and  the  only  one  that 
is  backward  ?  How  should  we 
know  the  one  power  which  we 
never  looked  in  the  face?  How 
could  it  profit  by  flashes  kindled 
H  6  h 


DEATH 

only  to  help  us  escape  it?  To 
fathom  its  abysses,  we  wait  until 
the  most  enfeebled,  the  most  dis- 
ordered moments  of  our  life 
arrive.  We  do  not  think  of 
death  until  we  have  no  longer  the 
strength,  I  will  not  say,  to  think, 
but  even  to  breathe.  A  man  re- 
turning among  us  from  another 
century  would  not  recognize  with- 
out difficulty,  in  the  depths  of  a 
present-day  soul,  the  image  of  his 
gods,  of  his  duty,  of  his  love  or 
of  his  universe ;  but  the  figure  of 
death,  when  everything  has 
changed  around  it  and  when  even 
that  which  composes  it  and  upon 
which  it  rests  has  vanished,  he 
would  find  almost  untouched, 
rough-drawn  as  it  was  by  our 
fathers,  hundreds,  nay,  thousands 
of  years  ago.  Our  intelligence, 
H  7  h 


DEATH 

grown  so  bold  and  active,  has 
not  worked  upon  this  figure, 
has  added  no  single  touch  to  it. 
Though  we  may  no  longer  believe 
in  the  tortures  of  the  damned,  all 
the  vital  cells  of  the  most  skepti- 
cal among  us  are  still  steeped  in 
the  appalling  mystery  of  the 
Hebrew  Sheol,  the  pagan  Hades, 
or  the  Christian  Hell.  Though 
it  may  no  longer  be  lighted  by 
very  definite  flames,  the  gulf  still 
opens  at  the  end  of  life,  and,  if 
less  known,  is  all  the  more  formi- 
dable. And,  therefore,  when  the 
impending  hour  strikes  to  which 
we  dared  not  raise  our  eyes,  every- 
thing fails  us  at  the  same  time. 
Those  two  or  three  uncertain  ideas 
whereon,  without  examining  them, 
we  had  meant  to  lean,  give  way 
like  rushes  beneath  the  weight 
-3  8  h 


DEATH 

of  the  last  moments.  In  vain  we 
seek  a  refuge  among  reflections 
that  rave  or  are  strange  to  us  and 
do  not  know  the  roads  to  our 
heart.  No  one  awaits  us  on  the 
last  shore  where  all  is  unprepared, 
where  naught  remains  afoot  save 
terror. 


H  9  h 


4^i^i^^£i^Si^SS^I^^i^^^^^^ 


III 


WE   MUST    ENLIGHTEN    AND    ESTABLISH 
OUR    IDEA    OF    DEATH 


Viict-^^  T  were  a  salutary  thing  for 
each  of  us  to  work  out  his  idea  of 
death  in  the  hght  of  his  days  and 
the  strength  of  his  intelhgence  and 
to  learn  to  stand  by  it.  He  would 
say  to  death: 

"I  know  not  who  you  are,  or 
I  would  be  your  master ;  but,  in 
days  when  my  eyes  saw  clearer 
than  to-day,  I  learnt  what  you  are 
not :  that  is  enough  to  prevent 
you  from  becoming  my  master." 

He  would  thus  carry,  imprinted 
on  his  memory,  a  tried  image 
H   lo  h 


DEATH 

against  which  the  last  agony  would 
not  prevail  and  in  which  the 
phantom-stricken  eyes  would  take 
fresh  comfort.  Instead  of  the 
terrible  prayer  of  the  dying,  which 
is  the  prayer  of  the  depths,  he 
would  say  his  own  prayer,  that 
of  the  peaks  of  his  life,  where 
would  be  gathered,  like  angels  of 
peace,  the  most  limpid,  the  most 
pellucid  thoughts  of  his  life.  Is 
not  that  the  prayer  of  prayers? 
After  all,  what  is  a  true  and 
worthy  prayer,  if  not  the  most 
ardent  and  disinterested  effort  to 
reach  and  grasp  the  unknown  ? 


H  11   F» 


IV 


WE    MUST    RID    DEATH    OF    THAT 
WHICH    GOES    BEFORE 


%J 


^  HE    doctors    and   the 

priests,"  said  Napoleon,  "have 
long  been  making  death  grievous.  " 
Let  us,  then,  learn  to  look  upon 
it  as  it  is  in  itself,  free  from  the 
horrors  of  matter  and  stripped  of 
the  terrors  of  the  imagination. 
Let  us  first  get  rid  of  all  that  goes 
before  and  does  not  belong  to  it. 
Thus,  we  impute  to  it  the  tortures 
of  the  last  illness  ;  and  that  is  not 
right.  Illnesses  have  nothing  in 
common  with  that  which  ends 
them.     They  form  part  of  life  and 

H    13    h 


DEATH 

not  of  death.  We  easily  forget 
the  most  cruel  sufferings  that 
restore  us  to  health ;  and  the  first 
sun  of  convalescence  destroys  the 
most  unbearable  memories  of  the 
chamber  of  pain.  But  let  death 
come ;  and  at  once  we  overwhelm 
it  with  all  the  evil  done  before  it. 
Not  a  tear  but  is  remembered  and 
used  as  a  reproach,  not  a  cry  of 
pain  but  becomes  a  cry  of  accusa- 
tion. Death  alone  bears  the 
weight  of  the  errors  of  nature 
or  the  ignorance  of  science  that 
have  uselessly  prolonged  torments 
in  whose  name  we  curse  death 
because  it  puts  an  end  to  them. 


H   i3  h 


THE  PANGS  OF  DEATH  MUST  BE 
ATTRIBUTED  TO  MAN  ALONE 


-.1-^  N  point  of  fact,  whereas  the 
sicknesses  belong  to  nature  or  to 
life,  the  agony,  which  seems  pecu- 
liar to  death,  is  wholly  in  the 
hands  of  men.  Now  Avhat  we 
m.ost  dread  is  the  awful  struggle 
at  the  end  and  especially  the  hate- 
ful moment  of  rupture  which  we 
shall  perhaps  see  approaching  dur- 
ing long  hours  of  helplessness 
and  which  suddenly  hurls  us,  dis- 
armed, abandoned  and  stripped, 
into  an  unknown  that  is  the  home 
of  the  only  invincible  terrors 
H  i4  H 


DEATH 

■which  the   human   soul  has  ever 
felt. 

It  is  twice  unjust  to  impute  the 
torments  of  that  moment  to  death. 
We  shall  see  presently  in  what 
manner  a  man  of  to-day,  if  he 
would  remain  faithful  to  his  ideas, 
should  picture  to  himself  the  un- 
known into  which  death  flings  us. 
Let  us  confine  ourselves  here  to 
the  last  struggle.  As  science  pro- 
gresses, it  prolongs  the  agony 
which  is  the  most  dreadful  moment 
and  the  sharpest  peak  of  human 
pain  and  horror,  for  the  witnesses, 
at  least;  for,  often,  the  sensibility 
of  him  who,  in  Bossuet's  phrase, 
is  "at  bay  with  death,"  is  already 
greatly  blunted  and  perceives  no 
more  than  the  distant  murmur  of 
the  sufferings  which  he  seems 
to  be  enduring.  All  the  doctors 
H  i5  h* 


DEATH 

consider  it  their  first  duty  to  pro- 
tract as  long  as  possible  even  the 
most  excruciating  convulsions  of 
the  most  hopeless  agony.  Who 
has  not,  at  a  bedside,  twenty  times 
wished  and  not  once  dared  to 
throw  himself  at  their  feet  and 
implore  them  to  show  mercy? 
They  are  filled  with  so  great  a 
certainty  and  the  duty  which  they 
obey  leaves  so  little  room  for  the 
least  doubt  that  pity  and  reason, 
blinded  by  tears,  curb  their  revolt 
and  shrink  back  before  a  law  which 
all  recognize  and  revere  as  the 
highest  law  of  human  conscience. 


H  i6  H 


YI 

THE     MISTAKE     OF     THE     DOCTORS     IN 
PROLONGING  THE  PANGS  OF  DEATH 


i  f 

NE  day,  this  prejudice  will 
strike  us  as  barbarian.  Its  roots 
go  down  to  the  unacknowledged 
fears  left  in  the  heart  by  rehgions 
that  have  long  since  died  out  in 
the  mind  of  men.  That  is  why 
the  doctors  act  as  though  they 
were  convinced  that  there  is  no 
known  torture  but  is  preferable  to 
those  awaiting  us  in  the  unknown. 
They  seem  persuaded  that  every 
minute  gained  amidst  the  most 
intolerable  sufferings  is  snatched 
from  the  incomparably  more 

H    17   h 


DEATH 

dreadful  sufferings  which  the  mys- 
teries of  the  hereafter  reserve  for 
men ;  and,  of  two  evils  to  avoid 
that  which  they  know  to  be  imagi- 
nary, they  choose  the  real  one. 
Besides,  in  thus  postponing  the 
end  of  a  torture,  which,  as  good 
Seneca  says,  is  the  best  part  of 
that  torture,  they  are  only  yield- 
ing to  the  unanimous  error  which 
daily  strengthens  the  circle  wherein 
it  is  confined :  the  prolongation 
of  the  agony  increasing  the  horror 
of  death ;  and  the  horror  of  death 
demanding  the  prolongation  of  the 
agony. 


M  18  M 


VII 

THEIR    ARGUMENTS 

^'  >  HEY,  on  their  part,  say 
or  might  say  that,  in  the  present 
stage  of  science,  two  or  three 
cases  excepted,  there  is  never  a 
certainty  of  death.  Not  to  sup- 
port Hfe  to  its  last  hmits,  even  at 
the  cost  of  insupportable  torments, 
were  perhaps  to  kill.  Doubtless 
there  is  not  one  chance  in  a  hun- 
dred thousand  that  the  sufferer 
escape.  No  matter.  If  that 
chance  exist  which,  in  the  major- 
ity of  cases,  will  give  but  a  few 
days,   or,    at    the    utmost,    a    few 

H  19  H 


DEATH 

months  of  a  life  that  will  not  be  the 
real  life,  but  much  rather,  as  the 
Latin  said,  "an  extended  death," 
those  hundred  thousand  torments 
will  not  have  been  in  vain.  A 
single  hour  snatched  from  death 
outweighs  a  whole  existence  of 
tortures. 

Here  are,  face  to  face,  two 
values  that  cannot  be  compared; 
and,  if  we  mean  to  weigh  them 
in  the  same  balance,  we  must 
heap  the  scale  which  we  see  with 
all  that  remains  to  us,  that  is, 
with  every  imaginable  pain,  for 
at  the  decisive  hour  this  is  the 
only  weight  which  counts  and 
which  is  heavy  enough  to  raise 
by  a  few  degrees  the  other  scale 
that  dips  into  what  we  do  not  see 
and  is  loaded  with  the  thick  dark- 
ness of  another  world. 
♦-j  20  {-• 


,''„.'5'> 


VIII 


THAT  WHICH  DOES  NOT  BELONG 
TO  DEATH 


^'  NGREASED  by  so  many 
adventitious  horrors,  the  horror  of 
death  becomes  such  that,  without 
reasoning,  we  accept  the  doctors' 
reasons.  And  jet  there  is  one 
point  on  which  they  are  beginning 
to  yield  and  to  agree.  They  are 
slowly  consenting,  when  there  is 
no  hope  left,  if  not  to  deaden, 
at  least  to  lull  the  last  agonies. 
Formerly,  none  of  them  would 
have  dared  to  do  so  ;  and,  even 
to-day,  many  of  them  hesitate  and, 
like    misers,    measure    out    drop 

♦^    21     {-♦ 


DEATH 

by  drop  the  clemency  and  peace 
which  they  grudge  and  which  they 
ought  to  lavish,  dreading  lest  they 
should  weaken  the  last  resistance, 
that  is  to  say,  the  most  useless 
and  painful  quiverings  of  life  that 
does  not  wish  to  give  place  to  the 
coming  quiet. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  decide 
whether  their  pity  might  show 
greater  daring.  It  is  enough  to 
state  once  more  that  all  this  does 
not  concern  death.  It  happens 
before  it  and  below  it.  It  is  not 
the  arrival  of  death,  but  the  de- 
parture of  life  that  is  appalling. 
It  is  not  death,  but  life  that  we 
must  act  upon.  It  is  not  death 
that  attacks  life ;  it  is  life  that 
wrongfully  resists  death.  Evils 
hasten  up  from  every  side  at  the 
approach    of    death,    but   not    at 

H   3a   {-• 


DEATH 

its  call ;  and,  though  they  gather 
round  it,  they  did  not  come  with 
it.  Do  you  accuse  sleep  of  the 
fatigue  that  oppresses  you  if  you 
do  not  yield  to  it?  All  those 
strugglings,  those  waitings,  those 
tossings,  those  tragic  cursings  are 
on  this  same  side  of  the  slope  to 
which  we  cling  and  not  on  the 
other  side.  They  are,  for  that 
matter,  accidental  and  temporary 
and  emanate  only  from  our  igno- 
rance. All  our  knowledge  only 
helps  us  to  die  in  greater  pain  than 
the  animals  that  know  nothing. 
A  day  will  come  when  science 
will  turn  against  its  error  and  no 
longer  hesitate  to  shorten  our  mis- 
fortunes. A  day  will  come  when 
it  will  dare  and  act  with  certainty  ; 
when  life,  grown  wiser,  will  de- 
part silently  at  its  hour,  knowing 
H  23  h 


DEATH 

that  it  has  reached  its  term,  even 
as  it  withdraws  silently  e\ery 
evening,  knowing  that  its  task  is 
done.  Once  the  doctor  and  the 
sick  man  have  learnt  what  they 
have  to  learn,  there  will  be  no 
physical  nor  metaphysical  reason 
why  the  advent  of  death  should 
not  be  as  salutary  as  that  of  sleep. 
Perhaps  even,  as  there  will  be 
other  things  to  consider,  it  will  be 
possible  to  surround  death  with 
deeper  delights  and  fairer  dreams. 
Henceforth,  in  any  case,  once 
death  is  exonerated  from  all  that 
goes  before,  it  will  be  easier  to  face 
it  without  fear  and  to  enlighten 
that  which  follows   after. 


H   24  t-» 


IX 

THE    HORRORS    OF    THE    GRAVE    ALSO 
DO    NOT    BELONG    TO    DEATH 


EATH,  as  we  usually 
picture  it,  has  two  terrors  looming 
behind  it.  The  first  has  neither 
face  nor  shape  and  overshadows 
the  whole  region  of  our  mind; 
the  other  is  more  definite,  more 
explicit,  but  almost  as  powerful 
and  strikes  all  our  senses.  Let 
us  first  examine  the  latter. 

Even  as  we  impute  to  death  all 
the  evils  that  precede  it,  so  do  we 
add  to  the  dread  which  it  inspires 
all  that  happens  beyond  it,  thus 
doing  it  the  same  injustice  at  its 
H  25  H 


DEATH 

going    as    at    its    coming.       Is    it 
death   that  digs    our   graves   and 
orders  us  to  keep  there  that  which 
was   made   to  disappear  ?     If  we 
cannot    think    without    horror   of 
the    fate    of    the    beloved    in    the 
grave,   is    it  death    or    we    that 
placed  him  there  ?     Because  death 
carries   the   spirit    to   some    place 
unknown,    shall    we    reproach    it 
with   our    bestowal   of   the    body 
which  it  leaves  with  us  ?     Death 
descends   upon  us   to   take    away 
a  life  or  change  its  form  :   let  us 
judge  it  by  what  it  does  and  not 
by  what  we   do  before  it   comes 
and   after  it  is   gone.      And  it  is 
already  far  away  when  we  begin 
the  frightful  work  which  we  try 
hard  to  prolong  as  much  as  we 
possibly  can,  as  though  we  were 
persuaded    that   it    is   our    only 

H   36  H 


DEATH 

security  against  forgetfulness.  I 
am  well  aware  that,  from  any 
other  than  the  human  point  of 
view,  this  proceeding  is  very  in- 
noxious. Looked  upon  from  a 
sufficient  height,  decomposing 
flesh  is  no  more  repulsive  than 
a  fading  flower  or  a  crumbling  U 
stone.  But,  when  all  is  said,  it 
off'ends  our  senses,  shocks  our 
memory,  daunts  our  courage, 
whereas  it  would  be  so  easy  for 
us  to  avoid  the  hateful  test.  Puri- 
fied by  fire,  the  memory  lives  in 
the  heights  as  a  beautiful  idea ; 
and  death  is  naught  but  an  im- 
mortal birth  cradled  in  flames. 
This  has  been  well  understood  by 
the  wisest  and  happiest  nations 
in  history.  What  happens  in  our 
graves  poisons  our  thoughts  to- 
gether with  our  bodies.  The 
H  27  H 


DEATH 

figure  of  death,  in  the  imagination 
of  men,  depends  before  all  upon 
the  form  of  burial;  and  the 
funeral  rites  govern  not  only  the 
fate  of  those  who  depart,  but  also 
the  happiness  of  those  who  stay, 
for  they  raise  in  the  very  back- 
ground of  life  the  great  image 
upon  which  their  eyes  linger  in 
consolation  or  despair. 


H  38  h* 


WHEN  CONTEMPLATING  THE  UNKNOWN 
INTO  WHICH  DEATH  HURLS  US, 
LET  US  FIRST  PUT  RELIGIOUS 
FEARS   FROM   OUR   MINDS 


€  i  HERE  is,  therefore,  but 
one  terror  particular  to  death : 
that  of  the  unknown  into  which 
it  hurls  US.  In  facing  it,  let  us 
not  delay  in  putting  from  our 
minds  all  that  the  positive  re- 
ligions have  left  there.  Let  us 
remember  only  that  it  is  not  for 
us  to  prove  that  they  are  not 
proved,  but  for  them  to  establish 
that  they  are  true.  Now  not  one 
of  them  brings  us  a  proof  before 
H  29  h 


DEATH 

which  a  candid  intelHgence  can 
bow.  Nor  would  it  suffice  if  that 
inteUigence  were  able  to  bow  ; 
for  man  lawfully  to  believe  and 
thus  to  limit  his  endless  seeking, 
the  proof  would  need  to  be  irre- 
sistible. The  God  offered  to  us 
by  the  best  and  strongest  proof 
has  given  us  our  reason  to  employ 
loyally  and  fully,  that  is  to  say, 
<.\^  :  to  try  to  attain,  before  all  and  in 
V^>^  all  things,  that  which  appears  to 

be  the  truth.  Can  He  exact  that 
we  should  accept,  in  spite  of  it, 
a  belief  of  which  the  wisest  and 
the  most  ardent  do  not,  from  the 
human  point  of  view,  deny  the 
uncertainty?  He  proposes  for  our 
consideration  a  very  doubtful 
story  which,  even  if  scientifically 
established,  would  prove  nothing 
and  which  is  buttressed  by  proph- 

H   3o  h* 


DEATH 

ecies  and  miracles  no  less  uncer- 
tain. If  not  by  our  reason,  by 
what  then  would  He  have  us 
decide?  By  usage?  By  the  acci- 
dents of  race  or  birth,  by  some 
aesthetic  or  sentimental  hazard  ? 
Or  has  He  set  within  us  another 
higher  and  surer  faculty  before 
which  the  understanding  must 
yield?  If  so,  where  is  it?  What 
is  its  name  ?  If  that  God  punishes 
us  for  not  having  blindly  followed 
a  faith  that  does  not  force  itself 
irresistibly  upon  the  intelligence 
which  He  gave  us  ;  if  He  chastises 
us  for  not  having  made,  in  the 
presence  of  the  great  enigma  with 
which  He  confronts  us,  a  choice 
which  condemns  the  best  and  most 
divine  part  of  that  which  He  has 
placed  in  us,  we  have  nothing  left 
to  reply :  we  are  the  dupes  of  a 
H  3i  h 


DEATH 

cruel  and  incomprehensible  sport, 
we  are  the  victims  of  a  terrible 
snare  and  an  immense  injustice ; 
and,  whatever  the  torments  where- 
with the  latter  loads  us,  they  will 
be  less  intolerable  than  the  eternal 
presence  of  its  Author. 


H  33  H 


XI 

ANNIHILATION    IMPOSSIBLE 


ERE  we  stand  before 
the  abyss.  It  is  void  of  all  the 
dreams  with  which  our  fathers 
peopled  it.  They  thought  that 
they  knew  what  was  there  ;  we 
know  only  what  is  not  there.  It 
has  enlarged  itself  with  all  that 
we  have  learnt  to  know  nothing 
of.  While  waiting  for  a  scientific 
certainty  to  break  through  its 
darkness  —  for  man  has  the  right 
to  hope  for  that  which  he  does 
not  yet  conceive  —  the  only  point 
that  interests  us,  because  it  is  situ- 
ated in  the  little  circle  which  our 
H  33  h 


DEATH 

actual  intelligence  traces  in  the 
thickest  blackness  of  the  night,  is 
to  know  whether  the  unknown 
for  which  we  are  bound  will  be 
dreadful  or  not. 

V\'^^  Outside  the  religions,  there  are 

^0  four  imaginable  solutions  and  no 

more  :  total  annihilation ;  survival 
with  our  consciousness  of  to-day ; 
survival  without  any  sort  of  con- 
sciousness ;  lastly,  survival  with 
universal  consciousness  different 
from    that   which  we    possess  in 

•\^^^'      this  world. 


■f.' 


4=  Total  annihilation  is  impossible. 
We  are  the  prisoners  of  an  infin- 
ity without  outlet,  wherein  noth- 
ing perishes,  wherein  everything 
is  dispersed,  but  nothing  lost. 
Neither  a  body  nor  a  thought  can 
drop  out  of  the  universe,  out  of 
time  and  space.     Not  an  atom  of 

-1   34   H 


DEATH 

our  flesh,  not  a  quiver  of  our 
nerves  vv^ill  go  where  ihey  will 
cease  to  be,  for  there  is  no  place 
where  anything  ceases  to  be.  The 
brightness  of  a  star  extinguished 
millions  of  years  ago  still  wanders 
in  the  ether  where  our  eyes  will 
perhaps  behold  it  this  very  night, 
pursuing  its  endless  road.  It  is 
the  same  with  all  that  we  see,  as 
with  all  that  we  do  not  see.  To  be 
able  to  do  away  with  a  thing,  that 
is  to  say,  to  fling  it  into  nothing- 
ness, nothingness  would  have  to 
exist ;  and,  if  it  exist,  under  what- 
ever form,  it  is  no  longer  nothing- 
ness. As  soon  as  we  try  to 
analyze  it,  to  define  it,  or  to  un- 
derstand it,  thoughts  and  expres- 
sions farl  us,  or  create  that  which 
they  are  struggling  to  deny.  It  is 
as  contrary  to  the  nature  of  our 
H  35  H 


DEATH 

reason  and  probably  of  all  imagina- 
ble reason  to  conceive  nothingness 
as  to  conceive  limits  to  infinity. 
yf>-    V    ;^-^_         Nothingness,   besides,   is  but   a 
^  U^  '*^'^'^  negative  infinity,  a  sort  of  infin- 

^\}  d^  ity  of   darkness   opposed  to   that 

which  our  intelligence  strives  to 
enlighten,  or  rather  it  is  but  a 
child-name  or  nickname  which 
our  mind  has  bestowed  upon  that 
which  it  has  not  attempted  to  em- 
brace, for  we  call  nothingness  all 
that  which  escapes  our  senses  or 
our  reason  and  exists  without  our 
knowledge.  The  more  that  human 
thought  rises  and  increases,  the 
less  comprehensible  does  nothing- 
ness become.  In  any  case — and 
this  is  what  matters  here  —  if 
nothingness  were  possible,  since 
it  could  not  be  anything  whatever, 
it  could  not  be  dreadful. 
H  36  I- 


XII 

THE  SURVIVAL  OF  OUR   CONSCIOUSNESS 


EXT  comes  survival 
with  our  consciousness  of  to-day. 
I  have  broached  this  question  in 
an  essay  on  Immortality,^  of  which 
I  will  only  reproduce  an  essential 
passage,  contenting  myself  with 
supporting  it  with  a  few  new 
considerations. 

What  composes  this  sense  of 
the  ego  which  turns  each  of  us 
into  the  centre  of  the  universe, 
the   only    point    that    matters    in 

^  This  essay  forms  part  of  the  volume  pub- 
lished under  the  title  of  The  Measure  of  the  Hours. 
—  Translator's  Note. 

•^  37  r- 


DEATH 

space  and  time  ?  Is  it  formed  of 
sensations  of  our  body,  or  of 
thoughts  independent  of  our  bodj? 
Would  our  body  be  conscious  of 
itself  without  our  mind  ?  And, 
on  the  other  hand,  what  would 
our  mind  be  without  our  body? 
We  know  bodies  without  mind, 
but  no  mind  without  a  body.  It 
is  almost  certain  that  an  intellect 
devoid  of  senses,  devoid  of  organs 
to  create  and  nourish  it,  exists ; 
but  it  is  impossible  to  imagine 
that  ours  could  thus  exist  and  yet 
remain  similar  to  that  which  de- 
rived from  our  sensibility  all  that 
gave  it  life. 


H  38  H 


XIII 

IT    SEEMS    IMPOSSIBLE 


^»* — ^  HIS  ego,  as  we  conceive 
it  when  we  reflect  upon  the  con- 
sequences of  its  destruction,  this 
ego  is  neither  our  mind  nor  our 
body,  since  we  recognize  that  both 
are  waves  that  flow  away  and  are 
renewed  incessantly.  Is 
immovable  point,  which  could 
not  be  form  or  substance,  for 
these  are  always  in  evolution,  nor 
life,  which  is  the  cause  or  effect 
of  form  and  substance?  In  truth, 
it  is  impossible  for  us  to  appre- 
hend or  define  it,  to  tell  where  it 
dwells.  When  we  try  to  go  back 
H  39  h 


It    an^^  ^  ^^ 


?D^ 


I 


jjUmX^ 


/^"^ 


.^i>^  DEATH 


^  ,  to  its  last  source,  we  find  hardly 

V^^8>^  more  than  a  succession  of  memo- 

•^(ii^^i,  ^  ries,  a  series  of  ideas,   confused, 

!^,^4  ^^^    that    matter,    and    unsettled, 

rjj' ^  attached    to    the   one    instinct    of 

living :    a  series  of  habits  of  our !  ^    i^' 

sensibility  and  of  conscious  or  un-   ' 

conscious  reactions  against  the  sur- 

l^^/K*        rounding  phenomena.      When  all 

A^  \>a  ^'^^^      ^^  ^^^^'  ^^^  most  steadfast  point  of 

tr\^  tA^^  ^^^^  nebula  is  our  memory,  which 

Yiv^*^  seems,  on  the  other  hand,  to  be  a 

somewhat   external,    a    somewhat 

accessory  faculty  and,  in  any  case, 

one   of    the    frailest    faculties    of 

our   brain,    one    of  those   which 

(^f^    I  disappear  the   most    promptly  at 

^\^  r^  the  least  disturbance  of  our  health. 

^^^^  "As  an  English  poet  has  very  truly 

said,   that  which  clamours  aloud 

for  eternity  is  the  very  part  of  me 

that  will  perish." 

•-1   4o  H 


DEATH 

It  matters  not :  that  uncertain, 
indiscernible,  fleeting  and  pre- 
carious ego  is  so  much  the  centre 
of  our  being,  interests  us  so 
exclusively,^  that  every  reality  of  )^^^^^ 
our  life  disappears  before  this  -^^J\Mr  O^ 
phantom.  It  is  a  matter  of  utter 
indifference  to  us  that  throughout 
eternity  our  body  or  its  substance 
should  know  every  joy  and  every 
glory,  undergo  the  most  splendid 
and  delightful  transformations, 
become  flower,  perfume,  beauty, 
light,  air,  star ;  it  is  likewise  in- 
different to  us  that  our  intellect 
should  expand  until  it  mixes  with 
the  life  of  the  worlds,  understands 
and  governs  it.  We  are  per- 
suaded that  all  this  will  not  affect 
us,  will  give  us  no  pleasure,  will 
not  happen  to  ourselves,  unless 
that  memory  of  a  few  almost 
H  ki  ^ 


DEATH 

always  insignificant  facts  accom- 
pany us  and  witness  those  un- 
imaginable joys. 

"I  care  not,"  says  this  narrow 

ego,  in  its  firm  resolve  to  under- 

»«/>-'      stand    nothing.      "I   care   not    if 

hj^f  *^®  loftiest,  the  freest,  the  fairest 

0\  ^  ^    «>f  portions  of  my  mind  be  eternally 

i  living  and  radiant  in  the  supreme 

gladnesses:    they    are    no    longer 

mine  ;     I    do    not    know    them. 

_,     ,i?  Death    has    cut    the    network    of 

^,Ui  ^  ""       nerves  or  memories  that  connected 

W^*(\v*^   ^  them  with  I  know  not  what  centre 

^  J[i^  wherein    lies    the    sensitive   point 

which   I    feel    to    be    all    myself. 

They  are  now  set  loose,  floating 

in  space  and  time,  and  their  fate 

is  as  unknown  to  me  as  that  of 

the    most    distant    constellations. 

Anything    that    occurs    exists    for 

me    only  upon    condition    that   I 

H  4a   H 


^ 


DEATH 

be  able  to  recall  it  within  that 
mysterious  being  which  is  I  know 
not  where  and  precisely  nowhere, 
which  I  turn  like  a  mirror  about 
this  world  whose  phenomena  take 
shape  only  in  so  far  as  they  are 
reflected  in  it." 

Let  us  then  consider  that  all 
that  composes  our  consciousness 
comes  first  of  all  from  our  body. 
Our  mind  does  but  organize  that 
which  is  supplied  by  our  senses  ; 
and  even  the   images   and  words 

—  which  in  reality  are  but  images 

—  by  the  aid  of  which  it  strives 
to  tear  itself  from  those  senses 
and  deny  their  sway  are  borrowed 
from  them.  How  could  that  mind 
remain  what  it  was  when  there  is 
nothing  left  to  it  of  that  which 
formed  it  ?  When  our  mind  no 
longer  has  a  body,  what  shall  it 

H  43  h 


DEATH 

carry  with  it  into  infinity  whereby 
to  recognize  itself,  seeing  that  it 
knows  itself  only  by  grace  of  that 
body  ?  A  few  memories  of  a  life 
in  common  ?  Will  those  memo- 
ries, which  were  already  fading 
in  this  world,  suffice  to  separate 
it  for  ever  from  the  rest  of  the 
universe,  in  boundless  space  and 
in  unlimited  time  ? 


H  44  H 


^-si*^'^^''' 


XIV 

THE    SAME,    CONTINUED 


r 


UT,"  I  shall  be  told, 
' '  there  is    more    in    us  than  the  x>^A  ^  '' 

intellect  discovers.     We  haYeH"*^  JjjjM^    ■. 
many  things  within  us  which  our       '^  ..<ij..*^    "^ 
senses  have  not  placed  there;   we    '^^^jr^  f     jih^^ 
contain   a   being   superior   to   the 
one  we  know." 

Th^t  is  probable,  nay,  certain : 
the  share  occupied  by  uncon- 
sciousness, that  is  to  say,  by  that  .  c^pcycC  ot.CMf^^^ 
which  represents  the  universe,  is  '  ^-  '-^-'^^'^''^"''' 
enormous  and  preponderant.  But 
how  shall  the  ego  which  we  know 
and  whose  destiny  alone  concerns 
us  recognize  all  those  things  and 
•^  45  h 


DEATH 

that  superior  being  whom  it  has 
never  known?  What  will  it  do 
in  the  presence  of  that  stranger? 
If  I  be  told  that  stranger  is  my- 
self, I  will  readily  agree  ;  but  was 
that  which  upon  earth  felt  and 
measured  my  joys  and  sorrows 
and  gave  birth  to  the  few  memo- 
ries and  thoughts  that  remain  to 
me,  was  that  this  unmoved,  un- 
seen stranger  who  existed  in  me 
without  my  cognizance,  even  as  I 
am  probably  about  to  live  in  him 
without  his  concerning  himself 
with  a  presence  that  will  bring 
him  but  the  pitiful  recollection  of 
a  thing  that  is  no  more?  Now 
that  he  has  taken  my  place,  while 
destroying,  in  order  to  acquire  a 
greater  consciousness,  all  that 
formed  my  small  consciousness 
here  below,  is  it  not  another  life 
H  46  h» 


DEATH 

commencing,  a  life  whose  joys  and 
sorrows  will  pass  above  my  head, 
not  even  brushing  with  their  new 
wings  that  which  I  feel  myself  to 
be  to-day? 


H   /I7   h 


'^^^^^^f:^i^ii^^^^:m-^^?i!^^j:^i^^5^^ri^^ 


XV 

IF    IT    WERE    POSSIBLE,     IT    WOULD 
>OT    BE    DREADFUL 


^y  Ja      '    '  ^   T  seems,   therefore,   that  a 


ij^  €^  survival  with  our  present  con- 

.>■  ^'  sciousness  is  as  impossible  and  as 

\/fA  incomprehensible  as  total  annihi- 

lation. Moreover,  even  if  it  were 
admissible,  it  would  not  be  dread- 
ful. It  is  certain  that,  when  the 
body  disappears,  all  physical  suf- 
ferings will  disappear  at  the  same 
time ;  for  we  cannot  imagine  a 
soul  suffering  in  a  body  which  it 
no  longer  possesses.  With  them 
will  vanish  simultaneously  all  that 
we  call  mental  or  moral  suffer- 
H  48  H 


DEATH 

ings,  seeing  that  all  of  them,  if 
we  examine  them  well,  spring 
from  the  ties  and  habits  of  our 
senses.  Our  soul  feels  the  reac- 
tion of  the  sufferings  of  our  body, 
or  of  the  bodies  that  surround  it ; 
it  cannot  suffer  in  itself  or  through 
itself.  Slighted  affection,  shat- 
tered love,  disappointments,  fail- 
ures, despair,  treachery,  personal 
humiliations,  as  well  as  the  afflic- 
tions and  the  loss  of  those  whom 
it  loves,  acquire  the  sting  that 
hurts  it  only  by  passing  through 
the  body  which  it  animates.  Out- 
side its  own  sorrow,  which  is  the 
sorrow  of  not  knowing,  the  soul, 
once  delivered  from  its  body, 
could  suffer  only  at  the  recollec- 
tion of  that  body.  It  is  possible 
that  it  still  grieves  over  the  troubles 
of  those  whom  it  has  left  behind 
H  49  H 


DEATH 

on  earth.  But,  in  the  eyes  of 
that  which  no  longer  counts  the 
days,  those  troubles  will  seem  so 
brief  that  it  will  not  grasp  their 
duration;  and,  knowing  what  they 
are  and  whither  they  lead,  it  will 
not  behold  their  severity. 

The    soul    is    insensible    to   all 

that  is  not  happiness.      It  is  made 

only  for  infinite  joy,  which  is  the 

^v^^  .  ji,-*^     joy  of  knowing  and  understand- 

'J'^'.'.aJ)     cT^''      ing-      It  can   grieve   only  at  per- 

^J^'j^v';^  ceiving  its   own   limits;    but  to 

r^n.7>*-*  perceive   those   limits,    when  one 

is  no  longer  bound  by  space  and 

time,  is  already  to  transcend  them. 


H  5o  h 


^j^i^^-j^^^gB^^S^^S^^fe^^sj^J* 


XVI 


THE    SURVIVAL    WITHOUT 
CONSCIOUSNESS 


i-._^^  HERE  remains  but  the 
survival  without  consciousness, 
or  survival  with  a  consciousness 
different  from  that  of  to-day. 

A  survival  without  conscious- 
ness seems  at  first  sight  the  most 
probable.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  the  good  or  ill  awaiting  us  on 
the  other  side  of  the  grave,  it 
amounts  to  annihilation.  It  is 
lawful,  therefore,  for  those  who 
prefer  the  easiest  solution  and  that 
most  consistent  with  the  present 
state  of  human  thought,  to  set 
H  5i  h 


DEATH 
that  limit  to  their  anxiety  there. 
They  have  nothing  to  dread ;  for 
every  fear,  if  any  remain,  would, 
if  we  look  into  it  carefully,  deck 
itself  with  hopes.  The  body  dis- 
integrates and  can  no  longer  suffer ; 
the  mind,  separated  from  the 
source  of  pleasure  and  pain,  is 
extinguished,  scattered  and  lost  in 
a  boundless  darkness ;  and  what 
comes  is  the  great  peace  so  often 
prayed  for,  the  sleep  without 
measure,  without  dreams  and  with- 
out awakening. 

But  this  is  only  a  solution  that 
flatters  indolence.  If  we  press 
those  who  speak  of  a  survival 
without  consciousness,  we  per- 
ceive that  they  mean  only  their 
present  consciousness,  for  man 
conceives  no  other ;  and  we  have 
just  seen  that  it  is  almost  impos- 
H  52  H 


DEATH 

sible    for    that    manner    of    con- 
sciousness to  persist  in  infinity. 

Unless,  indeed,  they  would  deny 
every  sort  of  consciousness,  even 
that  of  the  universe  into  which 
their  own  will  fall.  But  that 
means  solving  very  quickly  and 
very  blindly,  with  a  stroke  of  the 
sword  in  the  night,  the  greatest 
and  most  mysterious  question  that 
can  arise  in  a  man's  brain. 


H   53  h 


Sra^ 


XVII 

THE    SAME,    CONTINUED 


HIS  question  is  closely 
allied  to  our  modified  conscious- 
ness. There  is  for  the  moment  no 
hope  of  solving  it;  but  we  are  free 
to  grope  in  its  darkness,  which  is 
not  perhaps  equally  dense  at  all 
points. 

Here  begins  the  open  sea.    Here 

begins  the  glorious  adventure,  the 

only   one    abreast   with    human 

.  ^  ,1    curiosity,  the  only  one  that  soars  as 

avtA/^      high  as  its  highest  longing.      Let 

-^  sjr'    J         us   accustom  ourselves   to  regard 

.X^  ^W^'  death  as  a  form  of  life  which  we 

Ji^^"^  do    not   yet    understand ;     let    us 

H  54  H 


DEATH 

learn  to  look  upon  it  with  the 
same  eye  that  looks  upon  birth ; 
and  soon  our  mind  will  be  accom- 
panied to  the  steps  of  the  tomb 
with  the  same  glad  expectation 
that  greets  a  birth.  If,  before 
being  born,  we  were  permitted  to 
choose  between  the  great  peace 
of  non-existence  and  a  life  that 
should  not  be  completed  by  the 
magnificent  hour  of  death,  which 
of  us,  knowing  what  we  ought  to 
know,  would  accept  the  disquiet- 
ing problem  of  an  existence  that 
would  not  end  in  the  reassuring 
mystery  of  its  conclusion?  Which 
of  us  would  care  to  come  into  a 
world  where  there  is  so  little  to 
learn,  if  he  did  not  know  that  he 
miust  enter  it  if  he  would  leave 
it  and  learn  more  ?  The  best  part 
of  life  is  that  it  prepares  this  hour 
H  55  h 


DEATH 

for  US,  that  it  is  the  one  and  only 
road  leading  to  the  magic  gate- 
way and  into  that  incomparable 
mystery  where  misfortunes  and 
sufferings  will  no  longer  be  pos- 
sible, because  we  shall  have  lost 
the  body  that  produced  them; 
where  the  worst  that  can  befall 
us  is  the  dreamless  sleep  which 
we  count  among  the  number  of  the 
greatest  boons  on  earth ;  where, 
lastly,  it  is  almost  unimaginable 
that  a  thought  can  survive  to 
mingle  with  the  substance  of  the 
universe,  that  is  to  say,  with  in- 
finity, which,  if  it  be  not  a  waste 
of  indifference,  can  be  nothing 
but  a  sea  of  joy. 


H  56  H 


XYIII 

THE   LIMITED    EGO   WOULD    BECOME 
A    TORTURE 


^^^^^  EFORE  fathoming  that 

sea,  let  us  remark  to  those  who 
aspire  to  maintain  their  ego  that 
they  are  calhng  down  the  suffer- 
ings which  they  dread.  The  ego 
impKes  Hmits.  The  ego  cannot 
subsist  except   in  so   far   as   it   is  ^  ^ « 

separated    from    that  which    sur-    cW-tfi-Q-^^^^^y 
rounds  it.      The  stronger  the  ego,  I.  u^  s**^*^ 
the  narrower  its    hmits   and    the  '  ^ ;  -  C-»  ^^^ 
clearer  the  separation.     The  more 
painful   too ;    for  the  mind,   if  it 
remain  as  we  know  it  —  and  we 
are  not  able  to  imagine  it  different 
H  57  h 


>^^  DEATH 

^P  — will   no   sooner    have    seen  its 

'-^15  '  limits  than  it  will  wish  to  over- 

step them:  and,  the  more  sep- 
arated it  feels,  the  greater  will  be 
its  longing  to  unite  with  that 
which  lies  outside.  There  will 
therefore  be  an  eternal  struggle 
between  its  being  and  its  aspira- 
tions. And  really  there  were  no 
object  in  being  born  and  dying 
only  for  the  purpose  of  these 
endless  contests.  Have  we  not 
here  yet  one  more  proof  that  our 
ego,  as  we  conceive  it,  could 
never  subsist  in  the  infinity  where 
it  must  needs  go,  since  it  cannot 
go  elsewhere?  It  behooves  us 
therefore  to  get  rid  of  imagina- 
tions that  emanate  only  from  our 
body,  even  as  the  mists  that  veil 
the  daylight  from  our  sight  em- 
anate only  from  low  places. 
H  58  h 


DEATH 

Pascal  has  said,  once  and  for  all : 

"The  narrow  limits  of  our  being  I'^^wnnU  //^'"' 

conceal  infinity  from  our  view."       ^  n<-Ay  pIau^^^ 


H  59  V* 


^W»i^ 


XIX 


A  NEW   EGO  CAN  FIND  A   NUCLEUS  AND 
DEVELOP  ITSELF  IN  INFINITY 


N  the  other  hand  —  for  we 
must  be  honest,  probe  the  con- 
flicting darkness  which  we  beheve 
nearest  to  the  truth  and  show  no 
bias — on  the  other  hand,  we  can 
grant  to  those  who  are  wedded  to 
the  thought  of  remaining  as  thej 
are  that  the  survival  of  a  mere 
particle  of  themselves  would  suf- 
fice to  renew  them  again  in  the 
heart  of  an  infinity  wherefrom 
their  body  no  longer  separates 
them.  If  it  seems  impossible  that 
anything —  a  movement,  a  vibra- 
tion, a  radiation  —  should  stop  or 
H  60  h 


DEATH 

disappear,  why  then  should 
thought  be  lost?  There  will,  no 
doubt,  subsist  more  than  one  idea 
powerful  enough  to  allure  the  new 
ego,  which  will  nourish  itself  and 
thrive  on  all  that  it  will  find  in 
that  new  and  endless  environment, 
just  as  the  other  ego,  on  this  earth, 
nourished  itself  and  throve  on  all 
that  it  met  there.  Since  we  have 
been  able  to  acquire  our  present 
consciousness,  why  should  it  be 
impossible  for  us  to  acquire 
another?  For  that  ego  which  is 
so  dear  to  us  and  which  we  be- 
lieve ourselves  to  possess  was  not 
made  in  a  day ;  it  is  not  at  pres- 
ent what  it  was  at  the  hour  of  our 
birth.  Much  more  chance  than 
purpose  has  entered  into  it ;  and 
much  more  foreign  substance  than 
any  inborn  substance  which  it  con- 
-;  6i  H* 


DEATH 

talned.  It  is  but  a  long  series  of 
acquisitions  and  transformations, 
of  which  we  do  not  become  aware 
until  the  awakening  of  our  mem- 
ory ;  and  its  nucleus ,  of  which 
we  do  not  know  the  nature,  is 
perhaps  more  immaterial  and  less 
concrete  than  a  thought.  If  the 
new  environment  which  we  enter 
on  leaving  our  mother's  womb 
transforms  us  to  such  a  point  that 
there  is,  so  to  speak,  no  connexion 
between  the  embryo  that  we  were 
and  the  man  that  we  have  become, 
is  it  not  right  to  think  that  the 
much  newer,  more  unknown, 
wider  and  more  fertile  environ- 
ment which  we  enter  on  quitting 
life  will  transform  us  even  more? 
One  can  see  in  what  happens  to 
us  here  a  figure  of  that  which 
awaits  us  elsewhere  and  readily 
H  62  h 


DEATH 

admit  that  our  spiritual  being, 
liberated  from  its  body,  if  it  does 
not  mingle  at  the  first  onset  with 
the  infinite,  will  develop  itself 
there  gradually,  will  choose  itself 
a  substance  and,  no  longer  tram- 
melled by  space  and  time,  will 
grow  without  end.  It  is  very  pos- 
sible that  our  loftiest  wishes  of 
to-day  will  become  the  law  of  our 
future  development.  It  is  very 
possible  that  our  best  thoughts 
will  welcome  us  on  the  other 
bank  and  that  the  quality  of  our 
intellect  will  determine  that  of  the 
infinite  that  crystallizes  around  it. 
Every  hypothesis  is  permissible 
and  every  question,  provided  it  be 
addressed  to  happiness  ;  for  un- 
happiness  is  no  longer  able  to 
answer  us.  It  finds  no  place  in 
the  human  imagination  that  ex- 
H  63  h 


DEATH 

plores    the    future    methodically. 

And,    whateYcr  be   the  force  that 

survives  us  and  presides  over  our 

existence  in  the  other  world,  this 

existence,   to  presume  the  worst, 

could   be    no    less   great,   no  less 

happy  than  that  of  to-day.     It  will 

have  no  other  career  than  infinity ; 

y  and  infinity  is  nothing  if  it  be  not 

j^-^t''      I   felicity.       In   any  case,   it   seems 

^.  ^       fj^  fairly  certain  that  we  spend  in  this 

^"^  t*     '  ix    "^o^ld  the  only  narrow,  grudging. 


'^i^VjU^        obscure  and  sorrowful  moment  of 
'^V ^  our  destiny. 


H  64  f- 


•€-d^i«&S? 


XX 


ii>-- 


TIIE    ONLY    SORROW    THAT    CAN    TOUCH 
OUR    MIND 


E  have  said  that  the  one  |  ^  ^f^  *^ '^ 

sorrow  of  the  mind  is  the  sorrow  ^    /jv^''^^  • 

of  not  knowinsf  or  not  understand-  '^,    ,a  '^^^ 

ing,  which  contains  the  sorrow  of  ^.t^"'' 


powerlessness  ;  for  he  who  knows 
the  supreme  causes,  being  no 
longer  paralyzed  by  matter,  be- 
comes one  with  them  and  acts 
with  them ;  and  he  who  under- 
stands ends  by  approving,  or  else 
the  universe  would  be  a  mistake, 
which  is  not  possible.  I  do  not 
believe  that  another  sorrow  of  the 
sheer  mind  can  be  imagined.  The 
only  one  which,  before  reflection, 
H  65  h 


p-^ 


DEATH 

might  seem  admissible  and  which, 

J    ^^  in  an  J  case,  could  be  but  ephem- 

^^\^'\^      ^eral  would  arise  from  the  sight  of 

'  10  »^  ^^^^^        the  pain  and  misery  that  remain 

jiy  ^  iJ^  ^^  ^^^^  earth  which  we  have  left. 


'^xS^  ^^^-^^        the  pain  and  misery  that  remain 
jiy  ^  iJ^  ^^  ^^^^  earth  which  we  have  left. 

^gj^  But  this  sorrow,  after  all,  would 

be  but  one  side  and  an  insignifi- 
cant phase  of  the  sorrow  of 
powerlessness  and  of  not  under- 
standing. As  for  the  latter, 
though  it  is  not  only  beyond  the 
domain  of  our  intelligence,  but 
even  at  an  insuperable  distance 
from  our  imagination,  we  may 
say  that  it  would  be  intolerable 
only  if  it  were  without  hope. 
But,  in  order  to  be  without  hope, 
the  universe  would  have  to  aban- 
don any  attempt  to  understand 
itself,  or  admit  within  itself  an 
object  that  remained  for  ever 
foreign  to  it.  Either  the  mind  will 
H  66  I- 


DEATH 

not  perceive  its  limits  and,  conse- 
quently, will  not  suffer  from  them, 
or  else  it  will  overstep  them  as  it 
perceives  them;  for  how  could 
the  universe  have  parts  eternally 
condemned  to  form  no  part  of 
itself  and  of  its  knowledge? 
Hence  we  cannot  understand  that 
the  torture  of  not  understanding, 
supposing  it  to  exist  for  a  moment, 
should  not  end  hy  mingling  with 
the  state  of  infinity,  which,  if  it 
be  not  happiness  as  we  compre- 
hend it,  could  be  naught  but  an 
indifference  higher  and  purer  than 

joy- 


H  67   H 


XXI 


INFINITY    AS    CONCEIVED    BY    OUR 
REASON 


ET  US  turn  our  thoughts 
towards  it.      The  prohlem  extends 
beyond    humanity    and    embraces 
all  things.     It  is  possible,  I  think, 
to   view  infinity  under    two    dis- 
tinct aspects  and    try  to    foresee 
our  fate  therein.      Let  us  contem- 
^t    "\'^       plate    the    first   of   these  aspects. 
,,;J^\jb  ^'  >.         We  are  plunged  into  a  universe 
^^.^  ^^^^  ^^^  ^^  limits  in  space  or  time. 

'^^  '  ^P^        \.      It  never  began,   nor  will  it  ever 
„g)  ^^         end.      It  could  not  have  an  aim, 
J^-jy^  for,  if  it  had  one,  it  would  have 

attained  it  in  the  infinity  of  years 
H  68  H 


DEATH 

that  preceded  us.  It  is  not  mak- 
ing for  anywhere,  for  it  would  have 
arrived  there ;  consequently,  all 
that  the  worlds  within  its  pale,  all 
that  we  ourselves  do  can  have  no 
influence  upon  it.  If  it  have  no 
thought,  it  will  never  have  one. 
If  it  have  one,  that  thought  has 
been  at  its  climax  since  all  time 
and  will  remain  there,  changeless 
and  immovable.  It  is  as  young 
as  it  has  ever  been  and  as  old  as 
it  will  ever  be.  It  has  made  in 
the  past  all  the  efforts  and  all  the 
experiments  which  it  will  make  in 
the  future;  and,  as  all  the  possi- 
ble combinations  have  been  ex- 
hausted since  all  time,  it  does  not 
seem  as  if  that  which  has  not 
taken  place  in  the  eternity  that 
extends  before  our  birth  can  hap- 
pen in  that  which  will  follow  after 
H  69  h 


DEATH 

our  death.  If  it  have  not  become 
conscious,  it  will  never  become 
so ;  if  it  know  not  what  it  wishes, 
it  will  continue  in  ignorance, 
hopelessly,  knowing  all  or  know- 
ing nothing  and  remaining  as  near 
its  end  as  its  beginning. 


H  70  t- 


XXII 


INFINITY    AS    PERCEIVED    BY    OUR 

SENSES 


t  FA  LL  this  would  be,  if 
not  intelligible,  at  least  acceptable 
to  our  reason ;  but  in  that  uni- 
verse float  thousands  of  millions 
of  worlds  limited  by  space  and 
time.  They  are  born,  they  die 
and  they  are  born  again.  They 
form  part  of  the  whole;  and  we 
see,  therefore,  that  parts  of  that 
which  has  neither  beginning  nor 
end  themselves  begin  and  end. 
We,  in  fact,  know  only  those 
parts ;  and  they  are  of  a  number 
so  infinite  that  in  our  eyes  they 
H  71  h 


DEATH 

fill  all  infinity.  That  which  is 
going  nowhere  teems  with  that 
which  appears  to  be  going  some- 
where. That  which  has  always 
known  what  it  wants,  or  will 
never  learn,  seems  eternally  to  be 
making  more  or  less  unfortunate 
experiments.  What  is  that  which 
has  already  attained  perfection  try- 
ing to  achieve?  Everything  that 
we  discover  in  that  which  could 
not  possibly  have  an  aim  looks  as 
though  it  were  pursuing  one  with 
inconceivable  ardour  ;  and  the 
spirit  that  animates  what  we  see 
in  that  which  should  know  every- 
thing and  possess  itself  seems  to 
know  nothing  and  to  seek  itself 
without  intermission.  Thus  all 
that  is  apparent  to  our  senses  in 
infinity  gainsays  that  which  our 
reason  is  compelled  to  ascribe  to 
H  7a  h 


DEATH 

it.  According  as  we  fathom  it, 
we  understand  better  the  depth 
of  our  want  of  understanding ; 
and,  the  more  we  strive  to  pene- 
trate the  two  incomprehensibihties 
that  stand  face  to  face,  the  more 
they  contradict  each  other. 


H  73  K. 


XXIII 


WHICH    OF    THE    TWO    SHALL    WE 
KNOW? 


HAT  will  become  of 
us  amid  all  this  obscurity?  Shall 
we  leave  the  finite  wherein  we 
dwell  to  be  swallowed  up  in  this 
or  the  other  infinite?  In  other 
words,  shall  we  end  by  mingling 
with  the  infinite  which  our  reason 
conceives,  or  shall  we  remain 
eternally  in  that  which  our  eyes 
behold,  that  is  to  say,  in  number- 
less changing  and  ephemeral 
worlds?  Shall  we  never  leave 
those  worlds  which  seem  doomed 
to  die  and  to  be  reborn  eternally, 
to  enter  at  last  into  that  which, 
H  74  t^ 


DEATH 

since  all  eternity,  can  neither  have 
been  born  nor  have  died  and 
which  exists  without  either  future 
or  past  ?  Shall  we  one  day  escape, 
with  all  that  surrounds  us,  from 
the  unhappy  experiments,  to  find 
our  way  at  last  into  peace,  wisdom, 
the  changeless  and  boundless  con- 
sciousness, or  into  the  hopeless 
unconsciousness?  Shall  we  have 
the  fate  which  our  senses  foretell, 
or  that  which  our  intelligence  de- 
mands? Or  are  both  senses  and 
intelligence  illusions,  puny  imple- 
ments, vain  weapons  of  a  brief 
hour  that  were  never  intended  to 
probe  or  contend  with  the  uni- 
verse? If  there  really  be  a  con- 
tradiction, is  it  wise  to  accept  it 
and  to  deem  impossible  that  which 
we  do  not  understand,  seeing  that 
we  understand  almost  nothing? 
H  75  h 


DEATH 

Is  truth  not  at  an  immeasurable 
distance  from  those  inconsistencies 
which  appear  to  us  enormous  and 
irreducible  and  which,  doubtless, 
are  of  no  more  importance  than 
the  rain  that  falls  upon  the  sea? 


H   76   h* 


XXIV 


THE  INFINITY  WHICH  BOTH  OUR  REASON 
AND  OUR   SENSES  CAN  ADMIT 


UT,  even  to  our  poor 
understanding  of  to-day,  the  dis- 
crepancy between  the  infinity  con- 
ceived by  our  reason  and  that 
perceived  by  our  senses  is  perhaps 
more  apparent  than  real.  When 
we  say  that,  in  a  universe  that  has 
existed  since  all  eternity,  every 
experiment,  every  possible  com- 
bination has  been  made ;  when 
we  declare  that  there  is  not  a 
chance  that  that  which  has  not 
taken  place  in  the  uncountable 
past   can    take    place  in   the   un- 

-}  77   H 


DEATH 

countable  future,  our  imagination 
attributes  to  the  infinity  of  time 
a  preponderance  which  it  cannot 
possess.  In  truth,  all  that  in- 
finity contains  must  be  as  infinite 
as  the  time  at  its  disposal;  and 
the  chances,  encounters  and  com- 
binations that  lie  therein  have  not 
been  exhausted  in  the  eternity  that 
goes  before  us  any  more  than 
they  could  be  in  the  eternity  that 
comes  after  us.  There  is,  there- 
fore, no  climax,  no  changeless- 
ness,  no  immovability.  It  is 
probable  that  the  universe  is  seek- 
ing and  finding  itself  every  day, 
that  it  has  not  become  entirely 
conscious  and  does  not  yet  know 
what  it  wants.  It  is  almost  cer- 
tain that  its  ideal  is  still  veiled  by 
the  shadow  of  its  immensity  and 
almost  evident  that  the  experi- 
-3  78  h 


DEATH 

ments  and  chances  are  following 
one  upon  the  other  in  unimagin- 
able worlds,  compared  wherewith 
all  those  which  we  see  on  starry 
nights  are  no  more  than  a  pinch 
of  gold-dust  in  the  ocean  depths. 
Lastly,  it  is  yery  nearly  sure  that 
we  ourselves,  or  whatever  remains 
of  us — it  matters  not — will  profit 
one  day  by  those  experiments  and 
those  chances.  That  which  has 
not  yet  happened  may  suddenly 
supervene  ;  and  the  best  state, 
as  well  as  the  supreme  wisdom 
which  will  recognize  and  establish 
it,  is  perhaps  ready  to  arise  from 
the  clash  of  circumstance.  It 
were  not  at  all  astonishing  if  the 
consciousness  of  the  universe,  in 
the  endeavour  to  form  itself,  had 
not  yet  met  with  the  aid  of  the 
necessary  chances  and  if  human 
H  79  h- 


DEATH 

thought  were  seconding  one  of 
those  decisive  chances.  Here 
there  is  a  hope.  Small  as  man 
and  his  thought  may  appear,  he 
has  exactly  the  value  of  the  most 
enormous  forces  that  he  is  able 
to  conceive,  since  there  is  neither 
great  nor  small  in  the  immeasur- 
able ;  and,  if  our  body  equalled 
the  dimensions  of  all  the  worlds 
which  our  eyes  can  see,  it  would 
have  exactly  the  same  weight  and 
the  same  importance  with  regard 
to  the  universe  that  it  has  to-day. 
The  mind  alone  perhaps  occupies 
in  infinity  a  space  which  com- 
parisons do  not  reduce  to  nothing. 


H   80  {- 


XXV 

OUR    FATE    IN    INFINITY 

HATEYER  the  ulti- 
mate truth  may  be,  whether  we 
admit  the  abstract,  absolute  and 
perfect  infinity — the  changeless, 
immovable  infinity  which  has 
attained  perfection  and  which 
knows  everything,  to  which  our 
reason  tends  —  or  whether  we 
prefer  that  offered  to  us  by  the 
evidence,  here  below  undeniable, 
of  our  senses  —  the  infinity  which 
seeks  itself,  which  is  still  evolving 
and  not  yet  established — it  be- 
hoves us  above  all  to  foresee  in 
it  our  fate,  which,  in  any  case, 
H  8i  h 


DEATH 

must   end   hj   absorption  in   that 
very  infinity. 

The  first  infinity,  the  ideal  in- 
finity, is  so  strangely  contrary  to 
all  that  we  see  that  it  is  best  not 
to  attack  it  until  we  have  tried  to 
explore  the  second.  Moreover, 
it  is  quite  possible  that  it  may 
succeed  the  other.  As  we  have 
said,  that  which  has  not  taken 
place  in  the  eternity  before  may 
happen  in  the  eternity  after  us; 
and  nothing  save  innumerous 
accidents  is  opposed  to  the  pros- 
pect that  the  universe  may  at  last 
acquire  the  integral  consciousness 
that  will  establish  it  at  its  climax. 
After  giving  a  glance,  useless,  for 
that  matter,  and  impotent,  at  all 
that  may  perhaps  arise,  we  shall 
try  to  interrogate,  without  hope 
of    answer,    the    mystery    of    the 

H   82   h 


DE  AT  H 

boundless  peace  into  which  it  is 
possible  that  we  may  sink  with 
the  other  worlds. 


H  83  t- 


XXVI 

THE    SAME,    CONTINUED 


EHOLD  us,  then,  in 
the  infinity  of  those  worlds,  the 
stellar  infinity,  the  infinity  of  the 
heavens,  which  assuredly  veils 
other  things  from  our  eyes,  but 
could  never  be  a  total  illusion. 
It  seems  to  us  to  be  peopled  only 
with  objects  —  planets,  suns, 
stars,  nebulae,  atoms,  imponder- 
ous  fluids  —  which  move,  unite 
and  separate,  repel  and  attract 
one  another,  which  shrink  and 
expand,  displace  one  another  in- 
cessantly and  never  arrive,  which 
measure  space  in  that  which  has 
H  84  H 


DEATH 

no  limit  and  number  the  hours 
in  that  which  has  no  term.  In 
a  word,  we  are  in  an  infinity  that 
seems  to  have  ahnost  the  same 
character,  the  same  habits  as  that 
power  in  the  midst  of  which  we 
breathe  and  which,  upon  our 
earth,  we  call  nature  or  life. 

What  will  be  our  fate  in  that 
infinity?  It  is  not  vain  to  ask 
one's  self  the  question,  even  if 
we  should  mingle  with  it  after 
losing  all  consciousness,  all  notion 
of  the  ego,  even  if  our  existence 
should  be  no  more  than  a  little 
substance  without  name,  soul  or 
matter — one  cannot  tell — sus- 
pended in  the  equally  nameless 
abyss  that  replaces  time  and  space. 
It  is  not  vain  to  ask  one's  self  the 
question,  for  we  are  concerned 
with  the  history  of  the  worlds  or 
H  85  h 


DEATH 

of  the  universe ;  and  this  history, 
far  more  than  that  of  our  petty 
existence,  is  our  own  great  history, 
in  which  perhaps  something  of 
ourselves  or  something  incompar- 
ably better  and  vaster  will  end  by 
finding  us  again  some  day. 


H  86  h 


XXYII 

SHALL  WE  BE  UNHAPPY  THERE 


^  HALL  we  be  unhappy 
there  ?  It  is  hardly  reassuring 
when  we  consider  the  habits  of 
our  nature  and  remember  that  we 
form  part  of  a  universe  that  has 
not  yet  collected  its  wisdom.  We 
have  seen,  it  is  true,  that  good 
and  bad  fortune  exist  only  in  so 
far  as  regards  our  body  and  that, 
when  we  have  lost  the  agent  of 
our  sufferings,  we  shall  not  meet 
any  of  the  earthly  sorrows  again. 
But  our  anxiety  does  not  end 
here;  and  will  not  our  mind, 
lingering  upon  our  erstwhile  sor- 

H  87   h 


DEATH 

rows,  drifting  derelict  from  world 
to  world,  unknown  to  itself  in 
the  unknowable  that  seeks  itself 
hopelessly ;  will  not  our  mind 
know  here  the  frightful  torture 
of  which  we  have  already  spoken 
and  which  is  doubtless  the  last 
which  the  imagination  can  touch 
with  its  wing?  Lastly,  if  there 
were  nothing  left  of  our  body  and 
our  mind,  there  would  still  re- 
main the  matter  and  the  spirit 
(or,  at  least,  the  obviously  single 
force  to  which  we  give  that  double 
name)  which  composed  them  and 
whose  fate  must  be  no  more  in- 
different to  us  than  our  own  fate  ; 
for,  let  us  repeat,  from  our  death 
onwards,  the  adventure  of  the 
universe  becomes  our  own  adven- 
ture. Let  us  not,  therefore,  say 
to  ourselves: 

H  88  H 


DEATH 

' '  What  can  it  matter  ?  We 
shall  not  be  there." 

We  shall  be  there  always,  be- 
cause everything  will  be  there. 


XXYIII 

QUESTIONS    WITHOUT    ANSWERS 


ILL  all  this  to  which 


we  shall  belong,  in  a  world  ever 
seeking  itself,  continue  a  prey  to 
new,  unceasing  and  perhaps  pain- 
ful experiments?  Since  the  part 
that  we  were  was  unhappy,  why 
should  the  part  that  we  shall  be 
enjoy  a  better  fortune?  Who  can 
assure  us  that  those  unending  com- 
binations and  endeavours  will  not 
be  more  sorrowful,  more  awkward 
and  more  baneful  than  those 
which  we  are  leaving;  and  how 
shall  we  explain  that  these  have 
come  about  after  so  many  millions 
H  90  h* 


DEATH 
of  others  which  should  have  opened 
the  eyes  of  the  genius  of  infinity  ? 
It  is  idle   to   persuade   ourselves, 
as  Hindu  wisdom  would,  that  our 
sorrows  are  but  illusions  and  ap- 
pearances :  it  is  none  the  less  true 
that    they    make    us    very    really 
unhappy.      Has  the  universe  else- 
where a  more  complete  conscious- 
ness,  a    more   just    and    serene 
principle  of  thought  than  on  this 
earth  and  in  the  worlds  which  we 
perceive?     And,  if  it  be  true  that 
it  has  somewhere  attained  that  bet- 
ter thought,  why  does  the  thought 
that  presides  over  the  destinies  of 
our  earth  not  profit  by  it?     Could 
no   communication  be  possible 
between  worlds  which  must  have 
been  born  of  the  same  idea  and 
are  steeped   in  it?     What  would 
be  the  mystery  of  that  isolation  ? 
-J  91   H 


DEATH 

Are  we  to  believe  that  the  earth 
marks  the  most  advanced  stage 
and  the  most  favoured  experi- 
ment? What,  then,  can  the 
thought  of  the  universe  have  done 
and  against  what  darkness  must 
it  have  struggled,  to  have  come 
no  farther  than  this  ?  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  can  it  have  been 
stayed  by  that  darkness  or  by 
those  obstacles  which,  being  un- 
able to  arise  from  any  elsewhere, 
can  but  have  sprung  from  itself? 
Who  then  could  have  set  those 
insoluble  problems  to  infinity  and 
from  what  more  remote  and  pro- 
found region  than  itself  would 
they  have  issued?  Some  one, 
after  all,  must  know  what  they 
ask;  and,  as  behind  infinity 
there  can  be  none  that  is  not 
infinity  itself,   it  is  impossible  to 

•^  ga   {-. 


DEATH 

imagine  a  malignant  will  in  a 
will  that  leaves  no  point  around 
it  but  what  it  fills  entirely.  Or 
are  the  experiments  begun  in  the 
stars  continued  mechanically,  by 
virtue  of  the  force  acquired,  with- 
out regard  to  their  uselessness 
and  to  their  pitiful  consequences, 
according  to  the  custom  of  nature, 
which  knows  nothing  of  our  par- 
simony and  squanders  the  suns 
in  space  as  it  does  the  seed  on 
earth,  knowing  that  nothing  can 
be  lost?  Or,  again,  is  the  whole 
question  of  our  peace  and  happi- 
ness, like  that  of  the  fate  of  the 
worlds,  reduced  to  knowing 
whether  or  not  the  infinity  of 
endeavours  and  combinations  be 
equal  to  that  of  eternity?  Or, 
lastly,  to  come  to  the  greatest 
probability,  is  it  we  who  deceive 
H  93  h 


DEATH 

ourselves,  who  know  nothing, 
who  see  nothing  and  who  con- 
sider imperfect  that  which  is  per- 
haps fauUless,  we,  who  are  but 
an  infinitesimal  fragment  of  tlie 
intelligence  which  we  judge  with 
the  aid  of  the  little  shreds  of 
thought  which  it  has  vouchsafed 
to  lend  us? 


H  94  5^ 


XXIX 

THE    SAME,    CONTINUED 


OW  could  we  reply, 
how  could  our  thoughts  and 
glances  penetrate  the  infinite  and 
the  invisible,  we  who  neither 
understand  nor  even  see  the  thing 
by  which  we  see  and  which  is 
the  source  of  all  our  thoughts? 
In  fact,  as  has  been  very  justly 
observed,  man  does  not  see  light 
itself.  He  sees  only  matter,  or 
rather  the  small  part  of  the  great 
worlds  which  he  knows  by  the 
name  of  matter,  touched  by  light. 
He  does  not  perceive  the  immense 
rays  that  cross  the  heavens  save 
H  95  {"• 


DEATH 

at  the  moment  when  they  are 
stopped  by  an  object  of  the  nature 
of  those  which  his  eye  is  accus- 
tomed to  see  upon  this  earth : 
were  it  otherwise,  the  whole  space 
filled  with  innumerable  suns  and 
boundless  forces,  instead  of  being 
an  abyss  of  absolute  darkness 
which  absorbs  and  extinguishes 
the  clusters  of  beams  that  shoot 
across  it  from  every  side,  would 
be  but  a  prodigious,  untenable 
ocean  of  flashes.  Shakespeare's 
famous  Imes  : 

"There  are  more  things  in  heaven    and  earth, 
Horatio, 
Than  are  dreamt  of  in  your  philosophy." 

have  long  since  become  utterly 
inadequate.  There  are  no  longer 
more  things  than  our  philosophy 
can  dream  of  or  imagine :  there 
is  none  but  things  which  it  cannot 
H  96  {-• 


DEATH 

dream  of,  there  is  nothing  but  the 
unimaginable ;  and,  if  we  do  not 
even  see  the  Hght,  which  is  the 
onlj  thing  that  we  beheved  we 
saw,  it  may  be  said  that  there 
is  nothing  all  around  us  but  the 
invisible. 

We  move  in  the  illusion  of 
seeing  and  knowing  that  which 
is  strictly  indispensable  to  our 
little  lives.  As  for  all  the  rest, 
which  is  well-nigh  everything, 
our  organs  not  only  debar  us 
from  reaching,  seeing  or  feeling 
it,  but  even  restrain  us  from  sus- 
pecting what  it  is,  just  as  they 
would  prevent  us  from  under- 
standing it,  if  an  intelligence  of 
a  different  order  were  to  bethink 
itself  of  revealing  or  explaining  it 
to  us.  It  is  impossible  for  us, 
therefore,    to    appreciate    in    any 

H   97  f- 


DEATH 

degree  whatsoever,  in  the  small- 
est conceivable  respect,  the  pres- 
ent state  of  the  universe  and  to 
say,  as  long  as  we  are  men, 
whether  it  follows  a  straight  line 
or  describes  an  immense  circle, 
whether  it  is  growing  wiser  or 
madder,  whether  it  is  advancing 
towards  the  eternity  which  has  no 
end  or  retracing  its  steps  towards 
that  which  had  no  beginning. 
Our  sole  privilege  within  our  tiny 
confines  is  to  struggle  towards  that 
which  appears  to  us  the  best  and 
to  remain  heroically  persuaded 
that  no  part  of  what  we  do 
within  those  confines  can  ever 
be  wholly  lost. 


H   98  h» 


^^^Si^Sa^l^^^^^^^^^^^0> 


XXX 


IT      IS     NOT     NECESSARY      TO     ANSAVER 
TIIEM 


UT  let  not  all  these 
insoluble  questions  drive  us 
towards  fear.  From  the  point  of 
view  of  our  future  beyond  the 
grave,  it  is  in  no  waj  necessary 
that  we  should  have  an  answer 
to  everything.  Whether  the  uni- 
verse have  already  found  its  con- 
sciousness, whether  it  find  it  one 
day  or  see  it  everlastingly,  it  could 
not  exist  for  the  purpose  of  being 
unhappy  and  of  suffering,  neither 
in  its  entirety,  nor  in  any  one  of 
its  parts;  and  it  matters  little  if 
H  99  {- 


DEATH 

the  latter  be  invisible  or  incom- 
mensurable, considering  that  the 
smallest  is  as  great  as  the  greatest 
in  what  has  neither  limit  nor 
measure.  To  torture  a  point  is 
the  same  thing  as  to  torture  the 
worlds;  and,  if  it  torture  the 
worlds,  it  is  its  own  substance 
that  it  tortures.  Its  very  destiny, 
in  which  we  are  placed,  protects 
us.  Our  sufferings  there  could 
be  but  ephemeral ;  and  nothing 
matters  that  is  not  eternal.  It 
is  possible,  although  somewhat 
incomprehensible,  that  parts 
should  err  and  go  astray;  but  it 
is  impossible  that  sorrow  should 
be  one  of  its  lasting  and  necessary 
laws ;  for  it  would  have  brought 
that  law  to  bear  against  itself. 
In  like  manner,  the  universe  is 
and  must  be  its  own  law  and  its 
H   100  {-» 


DEATH 

sole  master :  if  not,  the  law  or 
the  master  whom  it  must  obey 
would  then  be  the  universe ;  and 
the  centre  of  a  word  which  we 
pronounce  without  being  able  to 
grasp  its  scope  would  be  simply 
displaced.  If  it  be  unhappy, 
that  means  that  it  wills  its  own 
unhappiness ;  if  it  will  its  un- 
happiness,  it  is  mad;  and,  if  it 
appear  to  us  mad,  that  means 
that  our  reason  works  contrary 
to  everything  and  to  the  only 
laws  possible,  seeing  that  they 
are  eternal,  or,  to  speak  more 
humbly,  that  it  judges  what  it 
wholly  fails  to  understand. 


H    loi   {-• 


XXXI 


EVERYTHING    MUST    FINISH    EXEMPT 
FROM    SUFFERING 


YERYTHING,  therefore, 
must  finish,  or  perhaps  everything 
already  is,  if  not  in  a  state  of  hap- 
piness, at  least  in  a  state  exempt 
from  all  suffering,  all  anxiety,  all 
lasting  unhappiness ;  and  what, 
after  all,  is  our  happiness  upon 
this  earth,  if  it  be  not  the  absence  of 
sorrow,  anxiety  and  unhappiness? 
But  it  is  childish  to  talk  of 
happiness  and  unhappiness  where 
infinity  is  in  question.  The  idea 
which  we  entertain  of  happiness 
and  unhappiness  is  something  so 


DEATH 

special,  so  human,  so  fragile  that 
it  does  not  exceed  our  stature  and 
falls  to  dust  as  soon  as  we  go 
beyond  its  little  sphere.  It  pro- 
ceeds entirely  from  a  few  accidents 
of  our  nerves,  which  are  made  to 
appreciate  very  slight  happenings, 
but  which  could  as  easily  have 
felt  everything  the  reverse  way 
and  taken  pleasure  in  that  which 
is  now  pain.  We  believe  that 
we  see  nothing  hanging  over  us 
but  catastrophes,  deaths,  torments 
and  disasters ;  we  shiver  at  the 
mere  thought  of  the  great  inter- 
planetary spaces,  with  their  cold 
and  formidable  and  gloomy  soli- 
tudes ;  and  we  imagine  that  the 
revolving  worlds  are  as  unhappy 
as  ourselves  because  they  freeze,  or 
clash  together,  or  are  consumed 
in  unutterable  flames.  We  infer 
H  io3  h 


DEATH 

from  this  that  the  genius  of  the 
universe  is  an  outrageous  tyrant, 
seized  with  a  monstrous  madness, 
and  that  it  deUghts  only  in  the 
torture  of  itself  and  all  that  it 
contains.  To  millions  of  stars, 
each  many  thousand  times  larger 
than  our  sun,  to  nebulae  whose 
nature  and  dimensions  no  figure, 
no  word  in  our  languages  is  able 
to  express,  we  attribute  our  mo- 
mentary sensibility,  the  little 
ephemeral  and  chance  working  of 
our  nerves;  and  we  are  convinced 
that  life  there  must  be  impossible 
or  appalling,  because  we  should 
feel  too  hot  or  too  cold.  It  were 
much  wiser  to  say  to  ourselves 
that  it  would  need  but  a  trifle, 
a  few  papillae  more  or  less  to  our 
skin,  the  slightest  modification  of 
our  eyes  and  ears,  to  turn  the 
H  io4  h 


DEATH 

temperature,  the  silence  and  the 
darkness  of  space  into  a  delicious 
spring-tinne,  an  unequalled  music, 
a  divine  light.  It  were  much 
more  reasonable  to  persuade  our- 
selves that  the  catastrophes  which 
we  think  that  we  behold  are  life 
itself,  the  joy  and  one  or  other  of 
those  immense  festivals  of  mind 
and  matter  in  which  death,  thrust- 
ing aside  at  last  our  two  enemies, 
time  and  space,  will  soon  permit 
us  to  take  part.  Each  world  dis- 
solving, extinguished,  crumbling, 
burnt  or  colliding  with  another 
world  and  pulverized  means  the 
commencement  of  a  magnificent 
experiment,  the  dawn  of  a  mar- 
vellous hope  and  perhaps  an  un- 
expected happiness  drawn  direct 
from  the  inexhaustible  unknown. 
What  though  they  freeze  or  flame, 
H  io5  {-• 


DEATH 

collect  or  disperse,  pursue  or  flee 
one  another :  mind  and  matter,  no 
longer  united  bj  the  same  pitiful 
hazard  that  joined  them  in  us, 
must  rejoice  at  all  that  happens  ; 
for  all  is  but  birth  and  re-birth, 
a  departure  into  an  unknown  filled 
with  wonderful  promises  and 
maybe  an  anticipation  of  some 
unutterable  event.    .    .    . 

And,  should  they  stand  still  one 
day,  become  fixed  and  remain 
motionless,  it  will  not  be  that 
they  have  encountered  calamity, 
nullity  or  death ;  but  they  will 
have  entered  into  a  thing  so  fair, 
so  great,  so  happy  and  bathed  in 
such  certainties  that  they  will  for 
ever  prefer  it  to  all  the  prodigious 
chances  of  an  infinity  which 
nothing  can  impoverish. 


THE    END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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